Choosing Fate
by Brandon Payne
Summary: What if Shane had made a different decision back in the hospital?


Rick is lying in a hospital bed in a coma. He looks so peaceful in spite of all the shouting, screaming, crying, and gunfire going on outside in the hallway. Shane is there by his bedside and leans over to be near his face.

"You'll only die here," Shane whispered. "Even if do you wake up, you'll be too weak to do anything but lie there and die a slow painful death."

His throat tightens and tears form in his eyes over the thought of his best friend dying slowly and painfully. Maybe he should just leave and cordon off his room with that stretcher outside. Who knows, Rick might not die and end up come out of his coma before his health is threatened any further. Then he can escape and find them. But Rick doesn't know what's going on and will end up dying for it.

Just one shot . . . Just one shot through his head and Rick will die instantly. Guilt rages within Shane, threatening to wash away his resolve. He takes a deep breath while slowly clasping his gun in his holster. His heart is beating hard and his lower lip trembles as he slowly and loudly exhales. The shouts and gunfire continue outside.

He slowly withdraws his gun and raises it as tears flow down his cheeks. His face is distorted with grief, and the shame is threatening to overwhelm him into running away. The tip of the barrel is now pressing against Rick's forehead. His hand shakes so much that he needs to grip his gun in both hands to steady his aim. His sobs grow louder. For a brief moment, he reflects over the past two weeks.

It all started with the news reporting about psychotic people attacking and biting other people severely enough to bleed their victims to death. They did more than bite their victims, they ate them alive, including loved ones. It was soon discovered that those psychotic people are neither living nor dead, and their victims in turn came back from the dead to aid their attackers. And it wasn't just in the United States of America, but all over the world as the horrific phenomenon became news coverage 24/7. The National Emergency Broadcasting System finally commandeered the airwaves and the President of the United States came on television from a secure location. He gave the usual speech concerning the extreme crisis, only to finish it by ordering anyone capable of shooting a gun to exterminate the walking dead. The rest of the emergency broadcast was about the safe zones that had been supposedly established, like the one in Atlanta, Georgia.

Shane shakes his head while gritting his teeth in the effort to clear his thoughts and focus on the now.

"It's for the better, old buddy," he sobbed with a grief-twisted face. "It's for the better! You'll only end up being eaten by them!"

He grits his teeth as the strain of between pulling the trigger and just putting his gun away and leaving is strong. He imagines Rick opening his eyes to look at him with a condemning look.

Shane screams as he pulls the trigger, the gunfire masking his scream of anguish. He drops his gun and to his knees to press his face into Rick's chest. He cries hysterically over his dirty deed and feels as if he is drowning in shame. Did Rick just open his eyes! He could have sworn that Rick had been glaring at him! He takes a few minutes to recover and slowly gets up. His tears stinging his eyes and obscuring his vision momentarily, but wipes them away. He forces himself to look at Rick, expecting to see his eyes open.

But Rick's eyes are still closed, and the bullet has left a neat hole in his forehead.

"I-I'm sorry!" Shane bawled. "I'm so sorry . . . ! It . . . It needed to be done . . . !" Then in a more profound tone. "I'-I'm gonna make it up to you, I swear . . . ! I-I'm gonna take care of Lori and Carl! Very good care of them!"

He hurries back to Rick's family to tell them only what they need to know: that he is dead. Naturally they are devastated, but they pack what they can and get out of town.

The nightmare of the walking dead continues to grow. All over America, indeed the world, the number of victims continues to grow rapidly and add to the walkers as all means of combating the walking dead ultimately fails. That also included the military using napalm on a city, which Shane had witnessed.

It is now two months since the dead began to walk. They are not only in the cities, towns, and other communities but are also being encountered on highways and in the forests. The living have become fewer, scattered and moving around in tiny convoys for a safe haven. Silence is now the norm the world over. A grim irony; given that when there was still a lot of living people, there was a lot of panic with much noise and explosions.

Shane and Rick's family are now part of a convoy camping at a quarry pit. There are over a dozen more people with them, with six of them off scavenging for supplies in Atlanta, where it turned out that no safe zone was ever established. The last the main group had heard from them was that they were seeking refuge in a department store from the walkers.

"Dale! Shane! Are you there? Is anyone there?" The desperate male voice sounded over the ham radio. "Hello! Is anyone there?"

Dale runs over to the radio, followed by Shane, and picks up the receiver.

"Glenn, is that you? This is Dale. What's goin' on?"

"Yeah, it's me. We got a huge problem and it's not the walkers! At least not yet!"

"What're you talking about?"

"It's Merle! He's gone nuts! He's been sniping walkers from the rooftop! We tried to stop him but he ended up beating the shit out of T-dog! Now he says he's in charge!"

"That son of a bitch!" Shane seethed through gritted teeth with gestures to match his anger. "I knew he was gonna be trouble from the day I first met him! I should've gunned that bastard down!"

"Now just calm down there for a moment!" Dale exclaimed in a casual manner with a wave of his free hand, then returns to his conversation. "Glenn, you still there?"

"Yeah!"

Dale takes a deep breath and sighs. "Okay, listen . . . Go and get Merle. I wanna talk to him."

"I'll . . . try," Glenn answered meekly.

"Yeah!" Shane yelled at the receiver. "Get that bastard here so that-!"

But he's cut off by a quick gesture and stern look from Dale.

"Like I said, I'm gonna talk to him. He is not going to respond to your curses and threats. So you just stand over there and listen." While making casual shooing motions at Shane.

Shane groans with frustration and a glare at Dale, but does as he is told, if only to stand no more than ten feet away. Some time passes before a slick and high-pitched southern drawl is heard over the radio.

"You wantin' to talk to me, old man?"

"Yes!" Dale stated. "What the hell are you doing!"

"We're all gonna die here," Merle drawled in a casual tone. "So it best to go down in a blaze of glory!" Ending with an intense tone.

"What about Daryl?"

"My little brother can take care of himself just fine."

"Look! If you wanna throw away your own life, then fine, be my guest! But don't go throwing away the lives of the others!"

"Well now they're not my problem. Especially not the taco, the chink, and the niggers. Where's that piggy? He still wallowin' in the mud? Suieeeeeeee!" Ending his statement with the shrill cry that is used to herd pigs.

"Right here asshole!" Shane roared into the receiver after snatching it from Dale. "Let 'em go!"

"Or what? You gonna come and get me? All you gonna do piggy is get bitten and cry wee wee wee all the way home. Then you gonna die and come back from the dead gruntin' and squealin' and wantin' to chow down on the others."

The ham radio goes static, causing Shane to throw down the receiver with a snarl and a curse.

"So how do we break this to the others?" Dale said grimly. "Especially to Amy, and Morale's family? Or even to Daryl for that matter?"

Shane is quiet for the moment as he sighs and rubs his hand briskly through his hair. As expected, they go and gather the other survivors, minus Daryl who is still out hunting, and tells them of Merle's madness.

"So how soon can we get ready to rescue them?" Amy asked eagerly.

"We're not," Shane proclaimed.

"That's my sister out there!" Amy screeched.

"And my husband!" Morales' wife cried.

"It's too dangerous," Shane stated intently.

"Fine, then I'm gonna-!" Amy snarled as she turns to stamp away.

"No, you will not!" Shane bellowed as he grabs her arm. "We all knew how dangerous the foraging was in the first place!" He takes a deep breath and calms a bit. "Right now the only thing we can do is hope that Merle gets killed and they manage to escape."

"Half my life I spent without my sister!" Amy bawled "We only got together when this nightmare began . . . ! I don't know what happened to my folks and they're probably dead!"

"Yeah, well everyone here has loved ones they'll never know about," Shane rebuked calmly. "Whether they're still alive and holed up someplace . . . or even if they're a walker. One thing we're not gonna do anymore is scavenge the towns and cities."

"So how are we going to get supplies?" One of the survivors named Carol asked.

Shane squints and frowns as he looks around for a moment. "Best thing to do is check out the villages 'cause they'll have fewer walkers to deal with. Abandoned cars and trucks on the highways are even better, there's dozens of them everywhere."

Later that evening a voice comes over the ham radio.

"Dale? You there? It's me, Glenn!" His pained and panicked voice came from the radio as sounds of distant crashing along with more indistinct noises are heard in the background.

Dale, who happens to be nearby, hurries over to pick up the receiver.

"Yeah, I'm here. What's going on?"

"Merle's dead! I repeat Merle is dead!" That crashing is now louder and the other noises sound like moaning.

"How! And what's that noise!"

"Listen, we don't have much time!" A woman's voice jumped in, who happens to be Andrea. The crashing and banging are louder now, and those are distinctly moans and groans. "I killed him! Shot him five times in the chest! But not before he shot us all! T-dog, Morales, and Jacqui are dead! Glenn and me are wounded! The walkers are inside!"

A louder crash is heard and those moans and groans now include bestial screeches and snarls.

"You'll be hearing two gunshotsl!" Glenn shouted quickly. "It was great knowin' you all!"

Sure enough, there is one gunshot. Then another just as the radio goes static.

Dale stands there with a stunned and lost look. He blinks and lowers the receiver then looks down at the radio and turns it off. He looks over his shoulder to see Shane, Amy, and Morale's wife standing there. Shane has a blank look, but Amy's face twists with despair and she turns, running away with her hands to her mouth. Morale's wife just sinks to the ground with her hands over her mouth and cries.

"I guess that solves our problem," Shane said flatly.

Dale glares at him with a sigh.

Everyone around the camp soon learns of their fate and the mood goes grim. A walker is discovered near their camp eating a deer that Daryl had obvious been hunting; since there are arrows sticking out of its rump as the man likes to hunt with them. They beat the walker in the attempt to bash in its head, but manage to chop its head off. The head still moves its jaw, showing that while decapitation does stop them, it doesn't kill them. Daryl finally shows up as he announces his presence by shooting an arrow through its head from his crossbow. They tell him what happened during his absence.

"I bet you're real happy that Merle's dead," Daryl sneered at Shane. "Hell, you probably sent him on that foraging mission so that he could get killed."

"Yeah, well he started it 'cause he just couldn't help but be himself," Shane proclaimed sarcastically.

"All right that's enough!" Lori stated. "Look, we've all had a rough day and lost those close to us. Bickering is not going to do anything."

An incident happens at the quarry pond where the women are washing clothes. Ed, Carol's husband, gets violent with Carol. Shane shows up and threatens to leave him tied up for the walkers if he ever caught him behaving that way again, causing Ed to sulk away. An even stranger incident involves one of the survivors named Jim. Since the morning he got up, he had been obsessively digging large holes near the camp. Holes large enough to put bodies in. He never explained why.

The group approaches him.

"Hey, Jim?" Shane said.

But Jim keeps on digging.

"Jim, stop it," Lori said. "You're scaring the children."

"Jim, take a break," Shane ordered.

Jim pauses for a moment to regard Shane.

"If I don't, then what? You're gonna tie me up and leave me for the walkers like you said you would do to Ed Peletier?"

Shane attempts to take the shovel away from Jim, but Jim swings it at him. Shane ducks and tackles Jim and holds him still while Jim struggles. Jim begans crying.

"The only reason I got away," he sobbed, "is 'cause the dead were too busy eating my family!"

Later that night they are sitting around the campfire. Amy gets up to go to use the toilet in the RV, only to be surprised by a walker that bites a chunk out of her left forearm. Her screaming draws their attention and that is when more walkers suddenly rush out of the darkness toward the survivors from every direction. Although the walking dead cannot move as fast as when they had once been living people, they are still quick enough to be a threat.

Shane shoots every walker that comes his way. He steals a quick glance at Lori to see her hugging Carl close to her before returning his attention to another walker that is quickly closing the distance with him. He discovers that he is out of ammo and ends up pistol whipping the walker. It's not enough and the walker presses its attack once again. Shane hits the walker with all of his strength with a furious yell and knocks it down. He repeatedly clubs its head with each scream until its forehead caves in. More cries fill the air, both male and female alike.

Another woman's scream makes him whip his head around to see a walker biting into the side of Lori's head, causing her face to twist from agony. She continues to hold onto a terrified Carl tightly as another walker hurries toward them.

"Lori! Carl!" Shane roared.

His distraction causes a set of cold hands to grip him like twin vices to be immediately followed by intense pain that causes him to scream as a chunk of flesh is bitten from the back of his upper right arm.

With a surge of adrenaline, he spins around with a frustrated cry and lashes out with the butt of his gun, striking the walker fully across the temple. The animated corpse is knocked off its feet and hits the ground from where it doesn't get back up.

Trying to ignore the horrific pain as he clasps the wound to feel hot blood flow between his fingers, Shane watches in horror as another walker grabs Carl and bites into his nape. The scream and look on Carl's face causes Shane to go into action.

Shane screams as he attacks the one attacking Carl and bludgeons it several times before it finally lets go and falls dead like a proper corpse, then turns his attention to the other attacking Lori. He pulls it off her, causing her ear to be torn off, and shoves the walker down. He's quick to straddle it and repeatedly bash its head with the gun as it tries to grab him. Its arms finally stop flailing and fall still as its head is finally caved in.

Shane gets back to his feet to look at Carl and Lori. She is clutching at her bloody ear and holding a now severely wounded Carl close to her. Both her blood and Carl's can be seen seeping between either set of her fingers. Shane quickly looks around to see that each survivor is dealing with at least one walker. Although Daryl has two to deal with, causing Jim to rush over and smack one with a baseball bat so that Daryl can stab the other through its head.

Shane drops his gun and picks up a stone, then rushes over to help each survivor by smashing in the head of their attacking walker. The last walker Shane deals with is the first one that attacked Amy, who is now dead with that walker feeding on her. After bashing its brains out, Shane looks around to find no more walkers and feels relief flood through him. That is when his wound suddenly seers with pain as his adrenaline rush dies down. The pain almost seizes him up and he screams long and loud. With it being a serious wound, he knows that he needs to bandage it or else he will bleed out.

Suddenly, he knows that it doesn't matter whether he tends to that wound or not. He casually walks around the campsite looking intently at the bodies lying everywhere. He sees the familiar bodies amongst them. Dale, Carol, Sophia, just to name a few. All of them with a piece of their neck now missing and their blood pooling around their bodies. Shane looks back to the others who are still alive, for the time being: Lori, Carl, Jim, and Daryl. They are cradling their deep wounds and wincing in agony.

"I remember my dream now," Jim rasped. "Why I dug the holes." Then grins ruefully as he slowly shakes his head. "Fat pile of good those'll now do."

"It's over," Daryl said with a meek tone as well. "You know what happens when you get bitten by them."

"We're out of ammo," Shane answered distantly as if distracted by something far away. "T-That means we can't blow our brains out before we die." He grins and chuckles while shaking his head slowly. "I guess . . . I guess this must be my punishment." He next looks at Lori with an inane smile that turns into a frown that twists his features while tears flow down his face. "I . . . I shot him . . . ! Rick! I shot Rick!"

Lori gives him a look of utmost horror. Her blood-smeared face making her expression look more intense.

"Soldiers were there evacuating the staff and slaughtering the patients," Shane continued with remorse while looking down. "Not walkers, but living people . . . ! I tried to carry him out of there, but ducked down when a soldier entered his room . . . ! But that soldier didn't shoot him!" A hush in his tone. "That soldier didn't shoot him and just left . . . ! I was about to leave then realized that he was gonna die there anyway . . . ! If he had awakened then he'd already be half-dead by then . . . ! So . . . So I just . . . shot him in the head!"

He weeps for awhile then looks back up at Lori and Carl, who now look at him as if he is a total stranger.

"I am so disappointed in you," Lori said in a cold deliberate tone with an equally cold glare. Again, her blood-smeared face making her look even grimmer.

Carl says nothing but hugs into his mother, as if Shane is about to kill him too. Jim and Daryl look at one another, then back at Shane, who now slumps to the ground onto his knees.

"I guess what they say is true," Daryl said as he sits on the ground. "When you know you're gonna die . . . you suddenly wanna confess your sins."

"I . . . I should've tried to get him out of there," Shane babbled weakly while slowly shaking his head and looking around at the ground. "Th-Then we could've at . . . at least watched over him."

Lori, Carl, and Jim also sit on the ground. Daryl is about to bandage his shoulder, only to stop.

"What's the point?" He growled as he throws down the cloth.

"I'm . . . I'm so sleepy, mom," Carl sighed.

Lori shushes him. "Just be quiet there sweety."

"It hurts," Carl moaned tearfully. "It hurts so much."

"The pain will go away soon." Her hushed voice now cracked and she kisses him on the head and strokes the back of his head, getting more of his blood through it.

Shane continues to babble nonsense while slowly shaking his head and staring around at the ground, punctuated by sobbing. He no longer covers his wound as both his hands are simply hanging down by his side.

"You're the only one who's not gonna bleed out, Lori," Jim rasped painfully. "You're gonna be the last to die."

Lori next notices the handle of a steak knife protruding from the skull of a walker. She reaches for it and clasps it, then pulls it out and places it by her side. Other than Shane, whose babbling becomes even softer, the rest sit there quietly.

The next thing Shane is aware of is that he had fallen over and now feels feverish. His wound now throbs and feels as if on fire. How much time has passed? He tries to get back up, only he feels so much weaker now and has to struggle. That is when he understands that he has lost more of his blood as he feels the back of his arm down to the side of his pants leg now soaked with his blood. At the rate he is losing blood, he too will be dead long before the infection can kill him.

Hours after his death, he will get back up again, and so will the others.

He looks around to see the four now lying down with their eyes closed. Whether Jim, Daryl, and Carl are truly dead from their wounds or just unconscious, he no longer cares. Lori is the only one who is definitely dead from that gash she now has across her throat. She looks more peaceful than the others, probably from the glaring contradiction of that gash, or possibly from the choice she made to die sooner. Unfortunately, it only means that her corpse will begin walking around sooner, and he himself might not be quite dead just yet.

He lies back down on the cool hard ground once again upon his back to stare up at the clear night sky at the stars. His strength continues fading as his fever continues rising. Sweat now saturates his shirt, causing a chill as he shivers. His eyelids are now heavier and he feels his consciousness starting to fade.

Shane notices Rick standing next to his left side but bent over to glare into his face. Rick is in uniform, complete with jacket and hat, but with a wounded forehead.

"H-Hey there buddy," Shane rasped feebly in a worried tone to match his wry expression. "Wha-What happen to you!" His expression tightens into a frown as tears trickle down either side of his face. "Oh . . . ! That's right . . . ! I killed you . . . ! I-I don't know what I was thinking! I-I don't-"

He is immediately silenced by Rick pointing a gun at his forehead. The sound of the hammer being cocked was the last of Shane's awareness.


End file.
